‘You’re too pessimistic, Kenneth,’ said Mrs Bartlett. ‘An umbrella soon gets waterlogged and sinks, I tell you. The chances are it will be picked up in the marsh tomorrow, and it’ll find its way back to you, for there’s that beautiful silver band on the handle with your name engraved on it.’

‘Eh, ’twould be a bonnie thing to recover it,’ said her husband.

Mr Wyse thought that the conversation was getting a little too much concerned with minor matters; the recovery of an umbrella, though new, was a loss that might be lamented later. Besides, the other missing lady had not been mentioned yet. He pointed to the two threepenny Christmas cards on the mantelpiece.

‘Our friend Elizabeth Mapp sent those to my wife and me yesterday,’ he said. ‘We shall keep them always among our most cherished possessions in case – I mean in any case. Pretty designs. Roofs covered with snow. Holly. Robins. She had a very fine artistic taste. Her pictures had always something striking and original about them.’

Everybody cudgelled their brains for something appropriate to say about Elizabeth’s connection with Art. The effort was quite hopeless, for her ignoble trick in rejecting Lucia’s and Georgie’s pictures for the last exhibition, and the rejection by the new committee of her own for the forthcoming exhibition were all that could occur to the most nimble brain, and while the artist was in direst peril on the sea, or possibly now at rest beneath it, it would be in the worst taste to recall those discordant incidents. A very long pause of silence followed, broken only by the crashing of toast in the mouths of those who had not yet finished their caviare.

Irene had eaten no caviare, nor hitherto had she contributed anything to the conversation. Now she suddenly burst into shrieks of hysterical laughter and sobs.

‘What rubbish you’re all talking,’ she cried, wiping her eyes. ‘How can you be so silly? I’m sure I beg your pardons, but there it is. I’ll go home, please.’

She fled from the room and banged the front door so loudly that the house shook, and one of Miss Mapp’s cards fell into the fireplace.

‘Poor thing. Very excitable and uncontrolled,’ said Susan. ‘But I think she’s better alone.’